Strawberry Cream Murder: A Donut Hole Cozy Mystery - Book 1 by Susan Gillard Page B

wasn’t angry at all.”
     
    “He was a jerk,” Amy said. 
     
    Heather sighed.  “I just wish I knew who actually did it,” she said.  “They were all three angry enough with her to kill her, but which one actually did?”
     
    ***
     
    The wraparound front porch was one of the things Heather loved best about her little house, if not the thing.  A languid breeze blew through the tops of the trees as she sat slouched in a white wicker chair, her feet up on a matching ottoman.  A glass of lemonade sat on the wicker table next to her.
     
    Curled up on the welcome mat, Dave snorted in his sleep and flailed his paws at something he dreamed of chasing.  Another dog?  A squirrel?  A rabbit?
     
    That’s what it felt like she was doing—chasing rabbits.  So much information leading so many different directions, but none of it leading toward an answer.
     
    She took a sip of her lemonade and let the cool liquid wash down her throat.  Wondered if the cyanide had slipped down Christa’s throat as smoothly.  And sat straight up in the chair. 
     
    Maybe that was the next direction to go: finding out how the cyanide had been administered.  All three suspects had had motive and opportunity.  If she couldn’t figure out who had done it, maybe she could start by figuring out how it had been done.
     
    Because if it hadn’t come from the donut Christa was eating, it had to have come from somewhere else.  Something else she ate.  Something maybe the pathologist had overlooked in the stomach contents.
     
    And just what do you think you can figure out that a trained professional couldn’t? she asked herself.
     
    The answer came back startlingly clear.  Maybe nothing.  But at least I can try.
     
    “Come on, Dave,” she said, standing up and snatching up her glass of lemonade.  “We’re going to go do a little research.”
     
    Dave raised his head an inch off the mat and opened one sleepy eye.
    “I know you’re tired, but this is important,” she said.  “ Really important.  Come on.”
     
    Dave stretched, lumbered to his feet, and shook himself.  Heather held the door open for him, and he trotted inside.  She detoured slightly into the kitchen and set the glass in the sink.  Then she hurried down the hall to her home office, with Dave following.
     
    As she sat down in her desk chair and woke up the monitor, Dave hopped up onto an armchair, turned in circles a few times, and curled back up to resume his nap.  “You go ahead and sleep,” she said.  “I have to Google ‘cyanide poisoning.’”

Chapter 8
     
    Forty minutes later, Heather sat back and frowned at the computer screen.  She tapped her fingers in sequence on the arm of her chair, over and over, as she thought.
     
    Cyanide powder, in its purest form, was illegal to buy almost anywhere and was very strictly controlled.  In fact, you couldn’t really get it unless you knew exactly where to find it, or unless you had connections. 
     
    Could Joey have gotten some? she wondered.  Maybe.  But it’s not like cyanide was a recreational drug.
     
    No, cyanide was for one purpose only: poisoning something.  Or someone.
     
    So if that’s what you were planning on doing, and you were just an average person, you would have to make your own cyanide.  The pits or seeds of certain fruits—apples, cherries, almonds—could be crushed in order to release cyanide.  Then, all you would have to do was get your victim to ingest that much bitter-tasting powder without realizing it.
     
    In the back of her mind, she heard a voice saying, I don’t like too much sugar.  I want to taste the ingredients that are in the cream, not just the sugar alone.
     
    That’s it! she thought.  The filling in a strawberry cream donut would be the perfect way to disguise the bitter taste.  You could just put in as much extra sugar as you needed.  After all, people expected the cream to be sweet.
    She pounded her fists on her chair arms in